Carolina, South Africa – A member of the Kommandokorps, a fringe right-wing group, points a gun at one of his young recruits at a camp in Carolina on the 4th of April 2011. The camp, held during a school holiday, teaches white Afrikaner teens self-defense and how to combat a perceived black enemy.
The group’s leader, self-proclaimed ‘Colonel’ Franz Jooste, served with the South African Defence Force under the old apartheid regime and eschews the vision of a multicultural nation.
The recruits are all part of the born free generation. These are the children born in the years around apartheids’ ending, they are now young adults: for this generation official racial segregation is the past.
Corruption and poverty are keeping many of the born-frees captive. They struggle—sometimes even more than their parents—with unemployment and inequality.
But there has also been real progress: many born-frees live successful lives and are pursuing careers that wouldn’t have been open to them during the old racist regime.
